Study of the structure and deviation from equilibrium in direct current supersonic plasma jets

Mathematical modelling and optical emission spectroscopy are applied to study the effect of the chamber pressure on the structure and properties of supersonic plasma jets formed by a direct current arc. In this installation the plasma is created inside the nozzle where the flow is accelerated. As a result some deviation from thermal and ionization equilibrium can be found, even at the working chamber inlet. In this paper, by means of a two-temperature model, we study the argon jet flow using the data of the emission spectroscopy measurements to make realistic assumptions about the inlet boundary conditions. The results show that, when the chamber pressure is low, a strongly underexpanded jet with a Mach disc is formed. For the higher ambient pressure values, the core region of the jet changes to a mildly underexpanded structure with alternating oblique expansion and compression zones. The predicted shock zone positions are in a very good agreement with measurement. The general analysis shows that the deviation from local thermodynamic equilibrium in the jet is inversely related to the chamber pressure. Along the jet core the deviation from thermal equilibrium is less in the shock regions than in the expansion zones, where the electrons are heated by three-particle recombination. Downstream of the jet core the velocity drops, but the ionization and thermal equilibria are not attained because of the correlation between the characteristic recombination and the hydrodynamic times. Both the modelling and the emission spectroscopy show that the axial electron number density is much closer to its frozen value than to equilibrium value. The results obtained are helpful for different applications such as plasma processing, rocket propulsion systems and the simulation of re-entry conditions.